I met a lot of great people that I hadn't met before and ran into some awesome people that I had met before. There are a lot of people that I wanted to run into but didn't get a chance to for one reason or another. Sleep, tourneys, alcohol, laziness got in the way - take your pick.

In a $1.5k WSOP event folding to cash is OK, not OK, OK, not OK, OK (I have no idea), especially when you know you are flipping right b4 the cash.

EST is not Eastern Standard Time. It is "American time" - via RealDawnSummers

If you agree to flip for $200/hand for x (5 I think) hands while really drunk and finish up $800, it is OK to stop flipping no matter how much the other guy keeps asking you too. That is what I did, until he starting offering me his $350 to my $300 in omaha flips. (more later on this)

It probably isn't a good idea to stay up all night and watch the USA soccer game if you started drinking at 5 pm. I think I fell asleep for a few at the bar somewhere between 2-0 and 2-1. Credit Vinnay for waking me up a couple of times in the 2nd half.

It gets light outside really, really early in LV.

I play much better in tourneys while drinking and much worse in cash games while drinking. Hmmm......

It is probably a good idea to set an alarm to remind yourself to eat dinner. I think there were a couple of days that I only ate one meal unless 15 beers counts as a meal.

Don't order a burger if the waitress tells you, "Are you sure that you want to order that. It is extremely spicy and there are no refunds." Also, always read the read print under the burger that mentions the beef is mixed with the hottest peppers in the world.

It is OK to call someone a "jack ass" if they call the clock on you in a cash game when they aren't in the hand. (more on this later)

OBFV and over shoving for value on the flop works really live if you just shoved on a short stack with AK on an all rag flop after the short stack called 2/3rds of this stack pf. They must always think you have AK instead of top set.

Almost forgot - if you are having dinner at the bar, it is prob a good idea to put a few dollars in the vid p0ker machine.

(I'm really going to post some WSOP stories soon, but here is my first weekend of real FL trip report while it's fresh.)

Real poker in Florida began last week - July 1, 2010 at 12:01 am. The maximum buy-in for cash games had been $100. It all changed last Thursday. The buy-in restriction was removed and each room was able to set it's own limits.

I wasn't able to play until Friday and was leaning towards heading to the Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa which is a little over 1 hour away. A few friends talked me into the Daytona Beach Kennel Club and Poker Room - mainly because of the big Nascar race being in town.

I left earlier than my friends in an attempt to beat the holiday/race weekend traffic. When I arrived at the poker room, I noticed that they had 2 buy-in ranges for each limit (multiple tables). It was pretty ridiculous. (2/5 with 100-300 and 200-500 and 5/10 with 300-500 and 500-1000). I was debating which game to play and I put my name on the list for both bigger buyin range 2/5 and 5/10. I got called for the 5/10 about 10 minutes later.

About 1 hour later, they decided to make their life easier and collapsed the buyin ranges to one per limit, but kept the small mins. I liked not having multiple games with different buy-ins at each limit, but didn't like that the new buy-ins allowed for more short stackers (30 bbs vs. 50 bbs)

After 5 hands in at 5/10, I was dealt AA and got aipf against JJ and held. I 3-bet and 5-bet the guy, before he finally shoved. He had like $725-$750. As I was raking the pot an older guy (regular - not in the pot) at the table said, "Oooohhh!! Wow!!! Huge Pot!! That's a hundra dolla tip right there!!" I tipped $5 and the guy went on to call me cheap and tell me "Come on, at least give the dealer another $10." I just ignored him. WTF? $5 is cheap?

About 45 minutes later, I won about $550 ($1100 pot) of a guy that couldn't fold his weak Ace against my AQ on a AxxxQ board. The same older guy (not in the pot) again commented on my $5 tip. "You just won two $2,000 pots (not correct) and you are only tipping $5. That is crazy. I'm going to bust your ass for being so cheap. Dealer, if I win a big pot (I didn't see him win any pots) then I'm going show you how people are supposed to tip."

LOL. The guy left the table about 2 minutes later.

Random thing I noticed - occasionally one guy (not the guy ripping on me) would tip like $40-$50 when he won a big pot (like $700 - $1k). I didn't believe it the first time I saw it.

A little later I lost a big pot with QQ to a guy that couldn't get away from A6o when he flopped bottom pair. Ace on the river killed me.

On another hand, I lost about $400 when I live straddled and was dealt 84 in a 8 way limped pot. The flop came 88T and there was action from a shorter stack (guy with about $350ish) that made me think he clearly had an 8. A horrible player in between us was forcing the action (with what I was guessin was something like AT). He had about $1,200. On a blank turn the short stack put his last $125 in. Mid pos called. I decided to shove since there was a flush draw (might have been bad in hind sight). Mid pos folded. River was an Ace. I told the short stack that I had an 8. He didn't say anything and I flipped up my hand. About 15 seconds later he dramatically flipped over his flopped full house (T8). Slow roll FTW!! Another WTF moment.

Several hours later with some up and down hands I was down about $550 and the table had gotten pretty tight without any spewey players, so I moved over to a 2/5 game that 2 of my friends were playing in. I think only 1 guy had $500 in front of him. I lost another $250 there without any hands of note other than losing a big pot against an extremely loose guy with QT vs. 22 on a QT2xx board.

I would rate the action as much much worse than I expected, but there are still good spots. It just seemed like there were way too many nits around. I guess that is probably because a lot of them are used to playing with the $100 max, where the only profitable way would have been nitty.

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Other random things:

This was the first night that they were open all night. Prior regulations only allowed them to be open until 1 am on weekends and midnight during the week. Because of this, they were clueless. I went to grab something at the concession stand at 10:50. The stand closes at 11 PM, but apparently the lady running the stands watch was 15 minutes fast. She said that they were closed. I just wanted a candy bar.

They had no food service at all after midnight, because no on thought about it in advance. Paul asked about getting anything to eat around 1 am and one of the waitresses brought him their "brand new" late night menu. She said, "I don't even know what's on it. They just decided to offer it - just came off the printer and I haven't looked at it yet."

The menu had 5 items that were all pretty much microwave items. Paul and Matt both ordered a Ham,egg, and cheese croissant. It was some microwave Costco type thing. Neither of them finished it and both of theirs were frozen in the middle.

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I guess they didn't expect the crowd overnight because around 11:30 they made an announcement that dealers weren't allowed to leave when their shifts end unless they got specific permission. There were several floor people dealing also.

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I ran into a ton of people that I hadn't seen in years from Orland home games - which was very cool. I haven't played in any home games around town in the last 2-3 years, since the game where I felt most comfortable stopped.

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The dealers did a great job, especially considering all the pressure that they were under with it being the first weekend.

Anyway, I won't get a chance to play again for 3 weeks, but will probably try out the Hard Rock Tampa next.